{"id":536153,"date":"2026-06-15T11:08:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:08:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/536153\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T11:08:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:08:23","slug":"a-need-for-pragmatism-in-preclinical-aging-and-longevity-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/536153\/","title":{"rendered":"A need for pragmatism in preclinical aging and longevity research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The current leadership of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a stated goal of de-emphasizing the use of animal models in health-related research with the rationale that questions \u201cthe efficacy of translating the results of animal models to human diseases, such as Alzheimer\u2019s disease and cancer\u201d, arguing that, \u201cThese translational challenges to humans may be due to differences in anatomy, physiology, lifespan, and disease characteristics\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nih.gov\/news-events\/news-releases\/nih-prioritize-human-based-research-technologies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NIH news release<\/a>, April 2025). This official statement was followed several months later with an announcement clarifying that the NIH \u201cwill no longer develop new funding opportunities focused exclusively on animal models of human disease\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/grants.nih.gov\/news-events\/nih-extramural-nexus-news\/2025\/07\/how-does-the-nih-initiative-to-prioritize-human-based-research-affect-research-proposing-the-use-of-laboratory-animals\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NIH news release<\/a>, July 2025).<\/p>\n<p>It is true that therapeutic translation from laboratory mice \u2014 the mammalian workhorse for biomedical research \u2014 to humans for many age-related diseases has been poor. For instance, more than 300 interventions have shown some success at mitigating pathology or improving behavioral symptoms in mouse models of Alzheimer\u2019s disease, yet few have shown safety and efficacy in humans<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 1\" title=\"Shineman, D. W. et al. Alzheimer&#x2019;s Res. Ther. 3, 28 (2011).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s43587-026-01151-w#ref-CR1\" id=\"ref-link-section-d7323852e231\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">1<\/a>. Similarly, although the majority of more than 1,000 acute stroke treatments evaluated in laboratory rodents had substantial therapeutic benefits, virtually all failed in human trials<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 2\" title=\"Schmidt-Pogoda, A. et al. Ann. Neurol. 87, 40&#x2013;51 (2020).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s43587-026-01151-w#ref-CR2\" id=\"ref-link-section-d7323852e235\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">2<\/a>. Indeed, in cancer research, only about 8% of successful animal trials make it to the clinic<a data-track=\"click\" data-track-action=\"reference anchor\" data-track-label=\"link\" data-test=\"citation-ref\" aria-label=\"Reference 3\" title=\"Mak, I. W., Evaniew, N. &amp; Ghert, M. Am. J. Transl. Res. 6, 114&#x2013;118 (2014).\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s43587-026-01151-w#ref-CR3\" id=\"ref-link-section-d7323852e239\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">3<\/a>. Such a high failure rate, and the associated cost in time and money, make it understandable that the benefits of research with animals are under scrutiny.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The current leadership of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a stated goal of de-emphasizing the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536154,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[5392,18,910,19,17,3544,88094,133],"class_list":["post-536153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ageing","tag-eire","tag-general","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-life-sciences","tag-neurophysiology","tag-science"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116753813104863742","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}